I’m an asshole. A vecking asshole.
She’s traumatised and frightened, and I’m thinking about how it would feel to have her body against mine again. Only with less clothes on.
Asshole.
“I should go and have a look round outside,” I say. “There are other cabins out there. Might be some more supplies we can use.”
Charlie nods and takes back her hand.
“Sure,” she says.
The glow of her necklace has gone now, but I give her one of the lights. It’s starting to fade, but for now it’s bright enough to provide her some reassurance, some comfort. I take the brighter of the two, needing the extra light to ensure I don’t trip and break my neck.
“I won’t be long,” I say.
“Okay,” she says, and I can see in her eyes what she’s not saying out loud.
Don’t leave me here on my own too long.
I fight against the primal part of me that wants to stay and wrap her in my arms, hold her close and tell her with my lips on her body that she’s okay. That I’ll never let any harm come to her again.
Still being an asshole.
When I’m outside, I give myself a thorough shake. I suspect it’s my Dravosic heritage coming out to play. The Dravosic people are driven by strong instincts. I’ve only ever experienced the fighting instinct before, but I know they have mating instinct, too. It should only be triggered by another Dravosic, but I’m hybrid, so who knows what fun and games my DNA can have with me. But, I can master the fighting instinct. I’ll master whatever this is, too.
There are three prefab buildings in total - the one I’ve left Charlie in and two others. I picked the only one with windows, figuring it would be some sort of office space. The other two look more like containers, and I’m hoping whoever was running this little operation has left something behind. The office building is tidy, but not cleaned out, and I figure whoever was mining down here didn’t do a proper withdrawal. They’d have taken their buildings with them if they had. The whole place has the air of somewhere abandoned in a bit of a hurry, the workers perhaps running to keep ahead of the frontline of the fighting.
The first storage building’s door is a little rusted and shrieks when I tug on it, the noise echoing around the chamber. I wince, but no sounds follow - just cavernous silence. I don’t think the hostiles would follow us into the unknown down a newly opened tunnel. One woman just isn’t worth that kind of trouble, even if she’s an incredibly beautiful one. But I listen to the silence a moment anyway, just in case the sound of footsteps starts up anywhere. After two or three minutes, I feel confident it won’t.
The stale air irritates my nose as I step inside the storage unit, but the aroma isn’t intense enough to be unpleasant. Within a few moments, I’ve grown used to it. Little plumes of dust are stirred up by my movements and every time I touch anything, the stuff in this unit undisturbed for some time. A quick search yields me a handful of heavy coats - musty, but warm - and a few blankets that have seen better days, but will be softer to lie on than the hard floor. I take them back to the office building then check the second storage unit.
It’s much the same as the first, but my thoroughness is rewarded when I uncover both a first aid kit and a small stash of freeze dried food. We won’t have to go hungry, at least. I bring my spoils back to the office building and lay them out on the table in front of Charlie.
“Let’s get that foot of yours sorted first,” I say, opening the first aid kit and pulling out a roll of bandage.
She strips off her sock and rolls up her trousers. Even in the gradually fading light, I can see the bruising coming out on her pale skin. I lift her foot into my lap, my hand brushing across her calf as I position it. I squash down the primal part of me with a firm hand.
“I’m going to wrap this quite tight,” I say to her. “Might be a bit painful, but it will be better for you in the long run.”
She nods, and even when I wrap the bandage round the most bruised parts, she doesn’t make a noise. When I’m done she wiggles her toes, and I notice the nails are a bright blue colour.
“Your nails don’t match,” I say, curious at the difference in colour between her fingers and toes.
“Ugh, I know. It’s funny, but I got abducted before I had time to redo them.”
She’s attempting to joke, and her tone almost lands. Almost hides the slight tremor in her voice. She’s being brave. First the pain and now the fear. She’s keeping it all inside herself, trying not to let it show.
“Redo them?” I say, wondering if this is some sort of Human ability, and what evolutionary purpose it might serve.
“Yeah, I’ve got a polish that would match my fingers.” She wiggles her fingers at me, and I catch a glimpse of scuffed skin on her palms as she lowers her hands back to the table. “That was my grand plan for the day once I finished getting my fingers done. But… things happened.”
“Polish? The colour is… painted on?”
I roll the bandage up and put it to one side, pulling out something to clean up her palms with.
“Yes,” she says.
“Why do you paint them?” I ask, gesturing for her to give me her hand. She does, wincing a little as I brush disinfectant over them.
“So they’re cute?” she says.
I frown, looking down at her feet again, unsure why the blue colour makes them cute.
“Are all Humans preoccupied with cute things, or is that just you?” I ask.
“I wouldn’t want to speak for all Humans,” she says. “I do like cute things, though.”
“You like Ness,” I point out, moving on to her other hand.
“Ness is cute! Don’t you think Ness is cute?”
I let my feelings on the matter be known with a grimace and she smirks at me.
“I assume there is a similar creature to a shedreion on your planet?” I say.
“She-dray-on,” she repeats. “Where I’m from, they’re called dogs.”
I put the disinfectant fluid back, and pull out some gauze. The scrapes on her hands aren’t that bad, but it’s not very clean down here. It’s only right to patch them properly. It’s not because I don’t want to stop touching her.
“Jaxran is delighted to know someone who doesn’t think his pet is a monster,” I say, pressing the gauze into her left palm and bandaging it into place. “Normally, wherever he goes, people avoid Ness. I think you’re the first person I’ve seen go straight in and pet him.”
She looks at me, blue eyes bright even in the fading light.
“You two are old friends, right?” she says.
I nod. “We served together in the war.”
“The war?”
“The Prenetash War. A war started by the Prenetashi people against the Vertruen Empire. It ended a little over a year ago, and we’re still dealing with the fallout. Which is in no small part why you ended up abducted. Not enough attention being paid to out of the way planets.”
“Did the Vetruens win?” she says, flexing her now finished left hand while I move to her right.
“Yes and no. The Prenetashi rebellion definitely lost, but… The Vetruen Empire didn’t survive either. The core systems formed a new system of government. The Universal Protectorate. So the Vetruens don’t rule everything any more, but there are still plenty of Vetruens in leadership positions.”
“Like the Commander?”
I try not to grimace at the thought of H’Varak. “Yes, like the Commander.”
“Which side did you fight for?” she asks.
“That’s a more complicated question than you might think,” I say. “When I was recruited by the Vetruen Empire, I didn’t know much of anything about the wider universe. I just knew the Prenetashi people had done some terrible things during the war - killed lots of innocent people. In the black and white world of the training camps, they were the enemy and that was it. But, as the war raged on, I learned more and more about the background to it. The fact that the Vetruens had abused and
exploited the Prenetashi people, used them in terrible ways. It didn’t make the murder of innocents any more acceptable, but…”
“But you started to see their side of it.”
I debate whether to continue talking. War is not exactly a polite conversation. But, I notice the way she flinches as I wrap her hands. Talking is a good distraction from pain. I’ve been patched up enough times to know that.
“Everyone always thinks they’re fighting for the ‘right’ side, but the truth is always far more complicated than that,” I say. “Towards the end of the war, the group that would become the Protectorate started to form. They tried to broker a cease fire with the Prenetashi, but things had gone too far. The Prenetashi wouldn’t back down. They have this ability - Beguile. It, well, it beguiles a person - someone under Prenetashi Beguile would do anything for the person using it on them. I think the Prenetashi knew they would always be met with distrust and fear because of it, and they figured if they had to live with that, they may as well be in charge and live with it. They fought to the bitter end. On the plus side, they took the Vetruen Empire with them - the Universe will be a better place in the long run. On the down side, though, there are many people who did terrible things during the war who claimed to have done them under the influence of Beguile. The Protectorate have no way of knowing who’s being truthful and who isn’t, so a lot of war crimes had to be pardoned.”
“I see what you mean about complicated,” she says.
I finish binding her right hand and she clenches her fists, testing the bandage.
“That feels a lot better, thank you,” she say, catching my gaze and holding it. “I’m glad the Vetruens don’t rule over everything if they’re all like the Commander. How he behaved towards you… That was awful. I’m sorry I went along with it. I know how that must have looked, like I was agreeing with him. I wasn’t I just… He frightened me.” She casts her eyes down, looking at the table and beyond it, seeing something in her memories, I think. “Men like that, men who look at women like they’re an object to possess. I’ve known men like that before. I’ve learned how to keep them sweet, how not to upset them in the hopes that they might leave you alone.”
“Princess…” I start, but she skewers me with a look. “Charlie,” I correct. “You don’t have to apologise to me. I’m the one who should be apologising to you. If I’ve been cold to you, it’s only because…”
“Only because you’re used to people like me treating you like nothing,” she finishes.
“Yes,” I say, voice gruff.
She fiddles with the edge of her bandage on her left hand. “I thought… when I was captured again and waiting in that room with the other women, I thought you’d never come for me.”
I frown. “It’s my job to protect you…”
“Yes, but, it would have been easy to say you’d tried everything you could and just couldn’t find me. Jaxran would have backed you up, he’s your friend. You could have just flown back to Xentra and got back on with your life without me being all horrible and uppity. I thought that’s what you’d do.”
“Is that why you caused your captors some trouble?” I ask, taking her hand to stop her pulling the bandage undone again.
“I hit one of them with a pipe. Thought if I knocked him out I could make a run for it. Only, I missed his head. Hit him across the shoulders. Just annoyed him, really. Rubbish. I am literally rubbish at everything.”
Any attempt to refute this would be disingenuous. I don’t know her well enough to tell her otherwise, though I strongly suspect her assessment of herself is very wrong.
“He dragged me in front of the leader. They brought out this… thing. This creature. I don’t know what it was. I don’t think it could talk… It looked like… Like if an octopus and a Jack Russell made a really, really ugly baby.”
She shudders at the memory. I don’t know what she’s referencing, so it doesn’t help me to imagine this creature at all, but I stay silent, waiting for her to get the rest of the story off her chest. I can push for more details at the end if I need to.
“As soon as it touched me,” she says, “it was like all the bad in my brain came out. Every doubt, every fear, every time I felt awful for whatever reason - it all came into my brain at once. Then, after a while, it was like it transported me back in time. It was just a memory, I get that, but it was so clear, so real. As if I was really there. When I came back it was like all the emotions of that moment, and all the other moments, came with me. And they’re all still here, rattling round inside my head. But not like before when they were all distant, forgotten feelings - like they’re brand new and I only just felt them.”
“It was a bad memory, the one you felt like you lived?” I ask as gently as I can.
She’s staring at the table again, eyes distant. “At first, but, I managed to push that one away before… And then I was remembering something I’d forgotten. Something my father used to say.”
Whatever it is, it has her shaken. I want to ask, but don’t want to push. I wait a long moment for her to speak again, and when she does, it’s not anything close to what I’m expecting.
“Are you married, Captain?” she asks.
“Dhak,” I say.
She gives me a questioning look.
“If you’re going to insist I call you Charlie, then you aren’t to call me ‘Captain’.”
A small smile curves the edges of her full lips. “Dhak,” she says. “You didn’t answer my question. You got someone waiting for you at home?”
“No,” I say.
“Don’t ladies love a man in uniform out here in space? If you like the ladies, I mean, I don’t want to make assumptions.”
“I like the ladies,” I say, not sure why I feel such an urge to make this clear to her. “And the ladies do like a man in uniform, but not when he’s spending months, years even, fighting wars on other planets.”
Not when he’s a hybrid.
“You’re not fighting wars now.”
I shake my head. “No, I’m not.” And because I apparently love to torture myself, I ask. “What about you? Someone waiting for you back home?”
She nods, but doesn’t smile. “My boyfriend, Jason. He… I used to think he wasn’t like the other guys. And nothing like my father. Now I’m not so sure about that.”
She touches her fingers to her forehead, just south of the red welt developing there.
“You should get some rest,” I say, rising abruptly from my seat. “I’ve found some food. I’ll see if I can find enough supplies to actually make it.”
“Okay,” she says, shoring herself up with a nod.
I walk into the kitchen. I should stay, comfort her, but her words have sent the Dravosic side of me into overdrive again.
Whoever this Jason is, I want to track him down and rip his head off for whatever he did to hurt her. Because he’s done something. That much is obvious.
When I’m done hunting for something to cook with, I’ve calmed down enough to face her again. Whatever this is, it’s starting to get very annoying. On the one hand, it’s good that the princess, that Charlie and I are on better terms. She knows she can trust me now. But that trust, and the comfort she seeks from me is only making this instinctual response to her worse. It’s like my relaxing of my manner around her has unleashed something from a cage my prim formality kept it in.
I’ve got to reign it back in. Years of conditioning in the army taught me to reign in the fight instinct and this is no difference. Only hopefully it won’t take years, because I’ve already done it once before. I don’t need to learn how to do it from scratch.
I make up two of the freeze dried meals, adding water from sealed bottles that I find stashed in the back of the kitchen cupboards. They don’t look appetising, but the smell is enough to remind me how hungry I am, the bread roll Jax bought me not enough to sustain me through a fight and a hunt and a foot chase through a mountain. I find utensils and bring the two bowls out. Charlie hasn’t moved from her ch
air, but she has wrapped herself in one of the blankets. I set a bowl down in front of her.
She pokes it with the utensil I give her. “Do I want to know?”
“Kind of like army rations,” I say. “Not pretty, or probably very tasty, but filling.”
I take a bite, and it’s actually not too bad. Or maybe I’m just extremely hungry.
We eat in silence, the lights dimming to the soft glow of candlelight. They won’t last much longer, and I don’t have enough left to crack another for the night. We’ll need them in the morning.
Even in the low light, I can see the angry mark across Charlie’s forehead, shaped a bit like a tear drop, with smaller circles within it. Sucker marks.
“I think I know what attacked you,” I say. “I think it might have been an Abbarax. They’re a strange species. Feed on brainwaves. To incapacitate their prey, they pull up all their bad memories. Just like you said - every bad thing you’ve ever felt, including all the stuff you’ve forgotten. They were used to torture people during the war. Owning them is illegal, but then… so is abduction and here we are.”
She pales, pausing with her food halfway to her mouth. “It doesn’t do permanent damage, does it?”
“Only with repeated or extended exposure. And it’s mostly psychological damage. You’d have to be exposed to one for a really long time before they physically turn your brain to soup.” I give her a gentle smile. “Clever things, Abbaraxi. Leave little capsules of their toxin behind in case their prey get away. Then when their prey bumps the area, bursts the capsules, they’re incapacitated again and the Abbarax can catch up to them, feed on them again.”
“A bit like a Komodo Dragon,” she says, then flushes. “You won’t know what a Komodo Dragon is. It’s this giant lizard thing with loads of bacteria in its mouth. It bites its prey then just follows it for days until it succumbs to the injury. Then the Komodo Dragon eats it.” She grimaces, her flush deepening. “Sorry, I’m being boring. I realise not everyone shares my interest in animal facts.”
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